kittle Bros/split rims

"suicide rims" haven't heard that one but very apt, thought this was a connection. Len and Jeff Kittle started a garage and transport business working between Tennant Creek and Alice springs, Jeff was puting air into a tyre when the ring came off and hit him in the forehead lifting his scalp back, they found him lying in the sun, got most of the flies off and duct taped the scalp back, came out of it Ok, an immensely strong man, seen him do some incredible lifting. They were Chevrolet agent and bought a new Maple Leaf, we were a bit envious of it with it's quiet ride, roll up windows, even a rubber floor mat!
I came across him coming South with 14 ton of copper ore, his spacer between the spider wheels on the trailer had collapsed, we all used ex-army Mcgrath 24 foot semi's, worn out, as I had just a few mail bags on I took mine off and swapped with him to get him into Alice, with no wieght on mine it was OK, I wondered (not often) why I took a full semi load of mail for Darwin but only bought a few bags back. Ironicaly, I waited 4 days at Larimah for the train to go to Darwin and return just like Kurt johannsen did before the war.
Both the Kittle brothers were super guys, real straight arrow, always help you out.
Once coming down at renner springs I had burnt out 3 exhaust valves on the blue diamond Inter, mate George Richards came along with Kittle's Bedford with a load of heavy oil in tanks, said he would pull me into Tennant, (no beer at Renner!) got halfway up Churchill's head jump up and the old Bedford stalled out, instead of hitting me behind he swung the wheel full lock and jumped out,the truck did a perfect jackknife with the trailer on it's belly on the cliff, tanks rolling off down the side of the hill, neatest piece of driving I have seen. jeff Kittle came up and politely towed me up to the top where I waited for a new cylinder head from Alice, never said a word about the disaster I caused, George was forever known as "jackknife George" after that

Waiting for a new head, Churchill's head inset, the soldiers during the war had stuck a log into the rock formation to complete the picture

Mate Bob Foster also waiting for the train hauling oil for the Tennant mines

Hi Ray, Knew you Grandad well, drove for Fleetowners with Bob Foster, this is the only pic I have of him with Co-ord trucks, from left, Arnold Ramirez, Don Merz, Bob Foster (?) Billy Bromhall (?) Sorry to hear he has passed on, Bob was real good mate of his and could tell you a lot more, his email bobat456@hotmail.com, mine is rlkd148@aol.com. An incident I well remember was when I was asleep on the side of the road at the top of the Barrow Creek jumpup, just on the ground so we wouldn't sleep long, in my sleep I had rolled out onto the bitumen probably 'cos it was warmer, Don and Bob came crawling up the jumpup, saw the mail truck with me asleep and parked right over the top of me, waking up looking at the sump of an 8 cylinder Gardner thumping away, not being the sharpest knife in the drawer it took a little while to realize the situation, they thought it was hilarious. ;D

Great old pics and story's as always Ron..

Hi Ron, you mention waiting for a new head, not as dramatic as yours but I remember way back, dropping a valve on an Austin petrol 7 tonner, it made a hell of a racket, I spent a day outside of the Kangy Angy Roadhouse at Ourimbah NSW, the old Pacific Highway, until my boss brought another spare head and a box of spanners from Sydney, it was fixed at the side of the road, from memory the back piston was a bit chopped up but it was left in I then continued to the MAN factory at Kurri Kurri with a load of components.